How do I get the AM/PM value from a DateTime?

Question

How about:

dateTime.ToString("tt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

string.Format("{0:hh:mm:ss tt}", DateTime.Now)

This should give you the string value of the time. tt should append the am/pm.

You can also look at the related topic:

How do you get the current time of day?

The DateTime should always be internally in the "american" (Gregorian) calendar. So if you do

var str = dateTime.ToString(@"yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss tt", new CultureInfo("en-US"));

you should get what you want in many less lines.

Very simple by using the string format

on .ToString("") :

• if you use "hh" ->> The hour, using a 12-hour clock from 01 to 12.

• if you use "HH" ->> The hour, using a 24-hour clock from 00 to 23.

• if you add "tt" ->> The Am/Pm designator.

exemple converting from 23:12 to 11:12 Pm :

DateTime d = new DateTime(1, 1, 1, 23, 12, 0);
var res = d.ToString("hh:mm tt");   // this show  11:12 Pm
var res2 = d.ToString("HH:mm");  // this show  23:12

Console.WriteLine(res);
Console.WriteLine(res2);

Console.Read();

wait a second that is not all you need to care about something else is the system Culture because the same code executed on windows with other langage especialy with difrent culture langage will generate difrent result with the same code

exemple of windows set to Arabic langage culture will show like that :

// 23:12 م

م means Evening (first leter of مساء) .

in another system culture depend on what is set on the windows regional and language option, it will show // 23:12 du.

you can change between different format on windows control panel under windows regional and language -> current format (combobox) and change... apply it do a rebuild (execute) of your app and watch what iam talking about.

so who can I force showing Am and Pm Words in English event if the culture of the >current system isn't set to English ?

easy just by adding two lines : ->

the first step add using System.Globalization; on top of your code

and modifing the Previous code to be like this :

DateTime d = new DateTime(1, 1, 1, 23, 12, 0);
var res = d.ToString("HH:mm tt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); // this show  11:12 Pm

InvariantCulture => using default English Format.

another question I want to have the pm to be in Arabic or specific language, even if I use windows set to English (or other language) regional format?

Soution for Arabic Exemple :

DateTime d = new DateTime(1, 1, 1, 23, 12, 0);
var res = d.ToString("HH:mm tt", CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("ar-AE")); 

this will show // 23:12 م

event if my system is set to an English region format. you can change "ar-AE" if you want to another language format. there is a list of each language and its format.

exemples :

ar          ar-SA       Arabic
ar-BH       ar-BH       Arabic (Bahrain)
ar-DZ       ar-DZ       Arabic (Algeria)
ar-EG       ar-EG       Arabic (Egypt)

big list...

make me know if you have another question .

I know this might seem to be extremely late.. however it may help someone out there

I wanted to get the AM PM part of the date, so I used what Andy advised:

dateTime.ToString("tt");

I used that part to construct a Path to save my files.. I built my assumptions that I will get either AM or PM and nothing else !!

however when I used a PC that its culture is not English ..( in my case ARABIC) .. my application failed becase the format "tt" returned something new not AM nor PM (م or ص)..

So the fix to this was to ignore the culture by adding the second argument as follow:

dateTime.ToString("tt", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

.. of course u have to add : using System.Globalization; on top of ur file I hope that will help someone :)